THE IMMORTAL ZEUS: Memoirs of a 3,000 YearOld King
by MiyaChama
Summary: What would the personal memoirs of history's most mischievous, misunderstood man look like? Something like this, actually... In this hilarious fantasy drama the most charismatic character in all mythology recounts his dizzying, daring life story.
1. Prologue

_A/N: To those of you joining us in the world of the HADES saga for the first time, welcome! And to those wonderful, loyal returning readers - welcome back! Due to being terribly busy with uni and various creative projects I haven't visited in a long time, and let me just take a minute to say that I missed you all, and damn, it feels bloody good to be back :)_

_I'm happy to share with you all now my 4th book: The Immortal Zeus: Memoirs of a 3,000 year old King. It is at once a standalone novel and companion volume to the HADES trilogy, and although chronologically it is placed between Resurrection and the as-yet-unfinished Legacy, it is essentially Zeus walking you through the happiness and heartbreaks of his life, from Ancient Greece through to the Swinging Sixties...so naturally these events take place long before Hades ever met Harusame and triggered the events of the aforementioned novels. Anyway. That's quite enough out of me; I'm going to shut up now and let my protagonist do the talking. (He's been giving me death glares and haughtily tapping his feet for the last two minutes...) Enjoy! *humbly bows*_

_-Miya 13/11/11_

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

The nightingale's crescendo is what stirred me from my dark snarl of dreams. It was only as that sweet yet outstandingly rich voice flowed into me, banishing the shadows of my unconscious as the real shadows lengthened outside, that I realised my shameful idleness and gave myself a mental slap. I fled to this space hours ago, resolute with the intention of putting pen to paper, and yet in my characteristic manner have amused myself with everything other than the undertaking itself; the last of which, and the most effective it seems, was taking a nap. But this artful dodger came here to write, and write I shall, even though twilight soaks into the sky in blacks and purples and reds, and I will soon need a candle to light my way. That's fine. If you're here with me, neither of us is alone.

My name is Zeus. Perhaps you've heard of me.

If you have you've probably heard wrong, and I categorically deny all charges unless you've got evidence. And if you heard about me from my brother Hades, well, let's just say that there are two sides to every story.

This is not only my side of the story but my story in its humble entirety, and if I'm going to explain to you who I am and why I turned out this way, I'd better start with the basics. As already stated, my name is Zeus, leader of the Olympian pantheon and King of all gods. I have many epithets (those so charitably conferred by Hades are not repeatable here) and many titles, but Zeus is what my mother named me, and Zeus is what my loved ones call me, so please, refer to me by that name. I say I am immortal. That is more or less true. In my current state as a god nothing can kill me, and few things can harm me – not physically, anyway (emotionally I'm as easily bruised as a peach). If I am wounded, my body repairs itself with magnificent and most convenient speed, and I am left with no permanent damage (there is however one thing that poses a threat to a god's immortality, even a god as powerful as myself, and that is the humble pomegranate. I've never partaken of pomegranate, nor do I ever hope to, because it can make a god most ill indeed. That matter we shall discuss later).

What do I look like? I'm glad you asked, and am only sorry I can't be there to dazzle you in person. I stand at six foot two, the minimum average height of men in my family, which is all right by god standards and pretty good by human standards. I am naturally pale-skinned but tan easily under the sun, and my white-blond hair, the colour of sheaths in a cornfield, is courtesy of my father, whose looks I inherited to a tee. My hair is wavy and I tend to leave it longish, tickling my neck, as my wife likes it that way. She says it makes me look boyish, and I like to please her. My eyes are a sparkling violet blue, the colour bequeathed upon all in my race, and framed by very long dark lashes which are all the better to bat at unsuspecting maidens. My mouth is wide and sensual and very expressive, and as my brothers will tell you, often too big for my own good. I am told to "stuff a sock in it" every other day. If you were to see me in the street in human fashions you might imagine that I was a student out for an off-campus stroll. This is my preferred stasis of age – young enough to charm, but old enough to be taken seriously. I've looked this way for as long as I can remember, and never felt the urge to change. You can write off the paintings and the ceramics and the statues you've seen of me with a Socrates beard to overactive human imagination – it gets on my wick, the way you humans make things up. I confess I grew a goatee in the sixties (we all did a lot of stupid things in the sixties) but usually I go clean-shaven.

So what is my job? Overseer of all divine life, from the smallest of the Japanese _Kami _deities sprinkled like hundreds and thousands over their tiny little islands, to the mightiest and strongest pagan, Egyptian and Norse gods who lie dormant all over the planet; forgotten, but not gone. A lot of deities from the Old religions aren't all that interested in human relations since the worship dried up and the sacrifices stopped coming in, but the Olympian pantheon prides ourselves in this area. We have many stakes in the running of the human world, in everything from politics to economy; and though I consider sitting in a boardroom to be the most tedious and difficult part of my job, my suffering is lessened a great deal by my clever and infinitely patient council. Many of us even have holiday homes in the human world, my brother Hades spending more and more of his time there these days (this came as a surprise to none of us – he took to godly life about as successfully as the dodos took to flying). While you might think that the end of worship might have caused us some setbacks (humans seem to have this absurd idea that gods shrivel up and die if you people aren't paying attention to us – quite hilarious!) if anything it enabled us to get along better, unhampered and left to do our jobs in relative peace. Of course there are rules in place for our interactions with humans. Humans are generally quite simple creatures, and can get quite upset if something as unreasonable as magic interrupts the blissfully ignorant status quo bubble in which they happily live. If we gods aren't very careful items float across rooms, things explode, earthquakes and flood occur and, in my case, thunderbolts shoot out of clear skies and zap anyone who happens to be annoying me. And then we're brought before the Moirae – two grumpy old hags that watch over fate…plus one other who was fairly nice to me, one time – and they give us a good ear-clipping, and then memory-altering spells have to be thrown about willy-nilly in order to maintain the peace.

It can all get very messy, and I'm embarrassed to say that with my weakness for human women a lot of those messes over the years have been mine.

Well! I sat down to tell you the wider story of my life, and I've already taken up so much time carrying on about myself. Perhaps already you appreciate what wonderful people my nearest and dearest must be, to tolerate several thousand years of this level of shameless narcissism. That's what I want to tell you about, actually. No, not me – although a lot of this book will have to feature me as a valid necessity.

For that I apologise.

But what I really want to tell you about is the people who shaped my life, because without them, I would not be what I am now. What am I? I am the King of the Gods, yes, but I am also a father, and a husband, a brother, a lover, and a man. And so much more. These memoirs are not my autobiography; they are my confessional, a eulogy for those I have lost, and a celebration for those I have loved, and love still. Terrible circumstances surround me and, I won't lie, are the motivation for my urge to write today. My once golden status is tarnished, and my proud heart has been blasted with misery. I desire to affirm my life because its fragility has only become apparent to me in these last twenty four hours; even as this ink dries I may yet lose those I love, and oh, how my fingers tremble at the very thought of it! But, I came here to forget my miserable present for one night, and travel back into my happy, humble beginnings. I'll probably be up all night, bent over the desk and scribbling out the inner workings of my soul until sparks fly from the pen, but this is what I need to do now, and I hope that by the time the dawn breaks I will have found some inner peace to steady myself for the rocky road ahead. Are you ready to take a long journey without ever leaving the room?

Hold my hand now, and turn the page. Don't worry. No matter what awaits, remember that you're only reading about it.

I lived it.


	2. Chapter 1: In The Bosom of Ida

**Chapter One - In the Bosom of Ida**

'_Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood_

_When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud_

_I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form_

"_Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm"_

-Bob Dylan

I was born atop Mt Olympus one blisteringly hot, thundery day of late summer, the third son and fourth and final child of King Kronus and Queen Rhea. Now if you imagine the birth of a new divine baby – a prince no less – to be a happy occasion, there you would be wrong, because my father wanted to murder me.

The whole business stems from an oracle (which if you ask me are silly things that ought to have been abolished – they've caused far more harm than good over the years; pick up practically any ancient myth or tale and see what I mean) which stated that if my father ever had a son born in his image, that son was destined to overthrow him. Given that oracles are hardly ever wrong, and I was the first of his children have his looks, you can sort of see why he overreacted. Plenty of people have wanted to kill me throughout my life, and most probably had fair reason, but good old Pops was the first to, rather unfairly, I might add, wish me dead before I'd even done anything to deserve it. He'd plotted my demise before I'd taken my first breath! He could've at least had the courtesy to wait until I'd started developing homicidal tendencies, you know, throwing my rattle at him and such, but if you can commend my father for nothing else (and you can't; he was as Hades succinctly phrased it: 'a psycho'), you must give him credit as a man who believed in pre-emptive measures.

My mother Rhea, not thoroughly on board with the idea of having her newborn slaughtered at birth for something he may or may not grow up to do, made prior arrangements to secure my safety. Due to the less-than-welcoming circumstances surrounding my arrival onto the planet, I was whisked from my mother's arms when only a few minutes old, and carried away to the human realm, to the beautiful Grecian island of Crete. While my father's formidable forces scoured the globe for me, here within a secret colony of nymphs on Mt Ida I grew up in relative harmony with limited knowledge of the outside world, and no real understanding of the devastation being done to it by the merciless manhunt. I was a cheery child with boundless supplies of energy (gods don't need sleep), horrifying albeit undeveloped powers (I was, according to the oracle, the strongest god of all time), and a very personable nature which flourished in the all-female population into which I was placed. Or to put it simply: I was a bit bonkers, a bit high on myself, and a right cheeky little flirt. With my mother unable to make contact with me, I was raised by sisters who were two of her most trusted friends: my guardian Amalthea, and my nursemaid Adrastia.

You could not have imagined two different people to be related. Adrastia was small, easy-tempered and soft-spoken; she would read to me and play with me and sing me lullabies, and was always the first to fret when I toppled out of the trees and injured myself or snuck out of the colony for the day and made everybody pull their hair out in panic. I still see and hear her in my dreams sometimes, with her large liquid eyes and sweet voice: 'Oh young master Zeus, won't you _please_ go to sleep?' But Amalthea…Amalthea was a tall, omniscient sharp-eyed tyrant of a woman who trained me to harness my powers and would be the first to smack me upside the head when I did something stupid. Which was often.

We had a sort of intricate tree-house system fashioned in our colony sleeping quarters, all ropes and ladders and vines and leaves, and I had the top bunk, meaning I had to learn to be fairly nimble in my infancy, or 'limber as a monkey', as Amalthea put it. I would rise with the birds, not afflicted by the low blood-sugar early-morning dead-eyed lethargy that I would one day find plagues the rest of my race, and scurry down to greet the sunrise. I had a beautiful view of the higher stratosphere from my bed, my favourite sight being an incongruent ghost of a crescent moon hanging in the clear summer sky, as though someone had thrown it up there and it stuck, but you needed to be further down to appreciate the sunrise. I always wanted to greet the new day, because I always imagined it was my friend, and would bring me the good news that I'd been waiting for – that it was finally my time to fight.

I knew who I was, and what was expected of me, from the time I could walk. Amalthea explained to me, when I was old enough to understand, that my real mother and three siblings were being held captive by my evil father, and that when I was old and strong enough I would defeat my father, rescue them all, and become King of Olympus. This fairytale knowledge of my impending brilliance, coupled with being the only male in an entire colony of nymphs who blushed at me and bowed to me and called me 'Prince' and 'My Lord' gave me rather a swelled head, and had it not been for Amalthea's consistent treatment (she didn't care whether you were a prince or a pauper, she wanted a hundred sit-ups every morning and by gods she got them) I might have developed into an insufferable brat, as opposed to the semi-sufferable brat I am today.

My early years were sheltered in the most literal of senses – with only nymphs for company I had no male figures of authority in my life, and no children of my own age to play with. I was never alone, but was often desperately lonely. For obvious reasons I was not allowed outside of the colony, but the mountain could not contain me – I wanted to see the world that I was told I would someday rule over as monarch.

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><p>On the south-western foothills of Ida lay the Amari valley, a rich, lush expanse of land surrounded by mountains on all sides. 'Cradled', was the word Adrastia actually used when showing me the view for the first time, but I thought 'surrounded' was a more accurate description. I sympathised with that valley. I learned early on that if I dashed about enough in the mornings, making poor Adrastia wheeze along behind me trying to keep up, she would surrender into a comfortable doze beneath our favourite olive tree by noon. Those were the times I would slip away, barefoot down into the valley for a few precious hours of stolen freedom before my gruelling sessions with Amalthea. How can I describe the heaven of my walks in that valley? Apple and pear and fig and cherry trees grew abound in the perfect climate, and in the spring the blossoms – especially the cherries – would take my breath away to behold. I would come back a month later in early summer to find black red cherries hanging like sweet treasures, and I would reach up to grab a handful and sit cross-legged in the meadows, letting them melt in my mouth. Dear Adrastia could never work out how I stained my clothes with so much blood when I was a self-healing being, and suggested to a displeased Amalthea that perhaps my training sessions were too harsh. Many rivers and bubbling streams ran through the valley, criss-crossing and feeding one another, and sometimes I would leap into one to refresh my scuffed, hot feet and run with it to find out its destination. Some flowed in and out of ancient caves, and even ducked underground where I could not follow – springing up again outside the boundaries of Amari and making their way to the sea. I stared after them with longing. The sea…that was something I'd only heard of, and could not quite picture in my head. A massive, engulfing expanse of water big enough to drown men? It sounded like a silly myth! Sometimes I would stay too long, finding myself a seat on a ragged boulder and jealously losing my sights in the passing cumulous who could go where they pleased, or sampling the eclectic variety of herbs and wildflowers which sprang up from the fertile soil. Some left a bitter tang on my tongue, and one made me ill, but many of them were delicious if I pocketed a sprig to take home and added a sprinkle to Amalthea's awful cooking. Most often I just liked to hold them, and smell their many fragrances, and wonder about all the other fragrances I had yet to find out in the wide world. When I did outstay my time, and afternoon's blue bled into evening's red, I would gather as many wildflowers as my little hands could hold – orchids, gladioli, narcissi and lupins boasting enough colours to shame a rainbow – and present them as a bouquet to my harried nursemaid, who would cry out at my safe return and embrace me tightly, promising that she wouldn't tell Amalthea about my escapism if I didn't tell her about Adrastia's nap.<p>

We were a covert team.

It was Adrastia who first noticed the pining way I gazed beyond our mountain retreat to far-off horizons, and it was she who gave in to my inundation of pleading to visit the little human village of Thronos, high in the north side of the valley. I had seen it from a distance, smoke curling from fires, and listened to the murmur of faraway voices and bleating of cattle, and it had sparked a restless yearning in me. I wanted to meet them – the species known as humans.

One morning, Adrastia sat down at the communal table with her breakfast, nobody else awake yet but us. Around this table the nymphs took their meals, and though I didn't need to eat as they did, I often sat with them just to enjoy the view. I was lifting a grape to my mouth and absently planning my itinerary of mischief for the day, when she leaned over to me and said,

'How would you like to meet your first human today, young master?'

I dropped my grape and threw myself across the table at her, upsetting the water jug.

'Do you mean it? Oh! Do you _really_ mean it? Are we going out? Oh _perfect!_' I was hooting with joy, like a hyperactive owl.

'Hush!' she said, trying to sound stern through her laughter and failing, because she had not a single stern bone in her body, 'Yes, we shall visit Thronos, but it shall be a brief stay only, and you must wear a disguise.'

'Oh I love you!' I said, my voice all choked by tears as I kissed her cheeks over and over, 'You wonderful, beautiful woman!'

I must've been barely eight years old, and I already had women flushing crimson at my words.

Adrastia hid two long hooded cloaks under her dress as we left for our morning stroll, and we passed by Amalthea with our hearts in our throats – but she saw us off with her usual 'Have him back by the afternoon' and a glint in her eye that told me she had found a new and testing training area, mostly likely with sharp little rocks that would assault my feet as I ran laps.

She was a sadistic woman.

As soon as we were out of sight of the colony I cantered down the foothills in a fit of ebullience like a pony loosed from its pen, and Adrastia hobbled behind me, occasionally losing her sandals in the tangles of heather and bracken and having to pause to reclaim them. I didn't know why she didn't go barefoot as I did – there is nothing more liberating than wiggling your toes in grass and letting your soles breathe. When we reached the valley and the steep slope levelled off, Adrastia held me still and wriggled the cloak over my head. It was musty-smelling and itchy, and draped to my ankles. She pulled my hood up and smiled at me. 'Perfect!' she said, and in my excitement I agreed with her, my discomfort forgotten. When she was suitably dressed, we continued down into the valley, and after a long walk, the land began to slope upwards again. I knew, with every sharp puffing inhalation Adrastia took behind me, that we were one step closer to the village.

Thronos in those days was a meagre, remote hamlet, but to me it was a gem among pebbles, a dusty haven of food and animal smells, timeless architecture and friendly people. As Adrastia and I walked through hand-in-hand to the square, people who looked just like the nymphs – just like me, even, but with darker complexions – smiled at us. So these were humans! How alike we all looked! After picking up some shellfish for dinner in the market square we found a pottery shop, and Adrastia ushered me in. The hot, dry air in here made me want to sneeze. 'Now,' she said, 'take care not to touch anything. If we break it, we must pay for it.' I perused the shelves, tagging along behind her, and poked at one vase that I liked. It was a vivid earthen umber with hints of sunset red, and above the swirling paints rimming its bulging belly was a little goat. The goat's disapproving expression seemed to follow you around the room, scowling at you wherever you went.

'Here,' I said in amusement, 'I don't know why, but this one reminds me of Amalthea.'

'Young master,' Adrastia chided, not without a hidden smile, but picked up the intricate pottery for closer inspection. She went away to enquire the price, and I moved out of the shadows to the entrance of the shop, enjoying the sun on my neck. There came a loud hearty boom from within, and I whirled around, terrified I had done something wrong and caused a disturbance. But no, it was only the loud, fat man who owned the shop, gesticulating and roaring laughter and goodwill at the top of his lungs, cheery with the innate knowledge all salesmen possess of how his customer could not haggle to save her life. I relaxed, my stiffness melting. There was no anger or danger here, only friendliness. Everyone I saw, families, tradesman and framers passing by in their daily routines, was in a good mood. What a lovely place to live.

I waited outside for Adrastia, rocking back and forth on my heels and wanting to go everywhere and see everything, even into the private homes. There was a lulling murmur of voices, not a buzz, as there was at the colony when all the nymphs talked at once. Laziness drifted in the air with no breeze, as though the very wind was taking a siesta. I was losing myself to a pleasant doze when something bumped into my feet, and I looked down. It was a spherical shape made of brown leather. I bent, closed my hand around it in wonder, and glanced around for its owner. And then I saw the most incredible thing ever. A child of my height, and probably my age, with long dark curls came over to me and smiled.

She was the most wondrous sight in the world.

'Hello!' she said, 'Thank you for stopping it for me.'

'You're welcome,' I said, aware of my tha-thumping heart, 'but what is it?'

'It's a toy,' she answered, taking it back with large, surprised eyes. 'A ball. Have you never played with one before?' She wrinkled her pretty nose and peered into my hood, scrutinising my pale face and hair. 'Are you a foreigner? You're funny looking.'

'Well!' I said, disarmed by her familiarity, 'that's not very polite. You can't talk to me like that.'

'And why not?' She pulled at my cloak, grinning.

'Because,' I announced, shrinking back from her and puffing up my chest, 'I am a god!'

'If you're a god, why don't you prove it?'

'Well,' I faltered, and then a spark ran through me; a spark of foolishness that I believe is exclusive to boys of a certain age. My reservations were forgotten. 'All right then. Give me your ball.'

Her dark eyes widened as she handed it over. 'Are you going to do a trick?'

'Oh my dear, it's far better than a trick,' said I, smug as anything.

'Wait here.' She ran away, giggling, to a group kneeling by a cart who were playing 'knucklebones' in the dust. Two were girls, four were boys, and they were all my height and my age. Their clothes were more ragged than mine, their hair and faces not as well-kept, but their tanned bodies revealed a life in the sunshine, and their wide white grins revealed a childhood of play and joy. After a minute of hands cupped to ears and hissed whispers, they ran back to me in an eager group, bobbing up and down and crying 'Show us your trick then, mighty god!'

I shut my eyes and concentrated on the ball, and at the same time I felt its weight leave my palm I heard their squeals of delight and awe. I quickly opened my eyes – no point in having an audience if you can't feed off their reaction, and I did just that, manipulating the ball into dancing mid-air, letting it bounce on an invisible surface and then coaxing it into zipping around my head as I leaned elegantly this way and that, avoiding it, grinning and adding little dance steps to the spontaneous routine. The children were in raptures, and so was I; so enraptured, in fact, that I didn't stop this ridiculous street performance in time.

Adrastia had by this time finished haggling, probably having been robbed blind. As she came up behind me holding her new purchase, she heard the children's cheers and saw me. She gasped, and there was an awful shattering sound as the vase with the scowling little goat hit the ground and was no more. I winced; my concentration now as broken as Adrastia's vase, the ball hit my foot and rolled away, stopping at its owner's feet.

The girl stared from me to Adrastia. 'You're weird!' she cried, seizing her ball and running away. The others, still tittering, followed her, and my tingling adrenaline rush faded with their laughter.

'Young master,' said Adrastia softly, stepping over her wasted pottery and laying a gentle hand upon my shoulder. 'I thought I explained to you why you must not reveal who you are. It is very dangerous…'

I turned on her. 'Why? Why must I hide like a criminal? What have I done wrong?'

'Nothing. You've done nothing.' My kindly nursemaid's eyes filled with tears. 'You are the light that will save this world from darkness, and we must keep you safe until that day.'

I miserably watched the children as they broke their circle and dashed away, hooting carefree laughter. My chest and stomach ached. I would have given away my identity and my destiny just to join them for a day. Nearby, cattle lowed and the mingled scents of fish and honey were strong. I hadn't understood hunger until then.

Adrastia, sensing my distress, softened her tone. 'I can make you a ball, if you like.'

She did make me a ball. Late that evening, as I lay exhausted under the stars from Amalthea's gruelling exercises, Adrastia pushed something round into my hand. I sat up, studying it. It was blue and threaded through with gold stitching.

'What is it?'

'It's a toy, for you,' she said. 'Try throwing it.'

I was too unhappy for playing, but she looked so very pleased with herself. So, for her, I threw it high up into the night sky.

It coursed upwards, blazing a dazzling streak of diamond glitter in its wake, and as it fell back into my palm with a soft smack, the tail emanated from its journey sprinkled down upon us like sparkling stardust.

'Thank you, Addy,' I said, fighting back tears and wishing that I could have asked those children from Thronos to play catch with me until the stars came out.

'A special toy,' she said, rocking forward to kiss my forehead, 'for a special little boy.'

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><p>Magic is a very different thing to your species than to mine. No human is born with magic – they may be born with a talent for handling it, just as some are natural mathematicians and some natural musicians, but no human is born with magic in their blood, just as no-one is born with a calculator in their palm nor a saxophone in their mouth. For humans beings magic is an art outside of themselves, something they partake of, play with and borrow, and usually not for any noble purpose. Most humans thankfully have either little talent for magic or little regard for it, or both, but while we gods are born with magic – we <em>are<em> magic, you might say, this does not for one minute excuse us from the responsibilities that come with such power. I say this because it is a foolish and unreasonable yet frequent misconception among you humans that those who have magic must be instant and natural masters of it, and the lack of logic in this astounds me. Just as humans must practise their talents we too must hone our magical skills if we wish to be proficient in them, or all we have is a vague, unused energy within us in raw form that is uncomfortable for he who contains it, and potentially dangerous for anyone around him. I repeat for emphasis that _magic must be honed to be of any use_, and some gods are better at this than others.

By the age of two I could cause thunder clouds to congregate above if I was in an ill temper, and by the age of five I could harness lightning in my hands, handling crackling bolts of it in my tiny palms as though it were nothing more than static. Amalthea forbade me from venturing out in stormy weather with anyone but her – she was not afraid for me, but for any poor unsuspecting guardian who might be standing near me if I happened to act as a walking lightning rod. By the age of six she had me out on the mountainside every day, come rain or shine, learning to grapple with that power of mine. It went well at first. She taught me basic spells to summon and channel the electricity, and I had the hang of them in months. But by the age of eight, or more specifically, after my disastrous trip into Thronos with Adrastia, my powers were once again slaves to my emotion.

Three mornings following our visit to Thronos found me walking alone down the mountainside in early dawn. I had nothing on my back – I needed nothing – and nobody knew I had left. The morning mist has not yet cleared, and everything was wrapped in a sort of damp, peachy fog. Faint birdsong pervaded the stillness. I paused briefly at the bottom of the trail and stared upwards for a long moment at the home I had grown up, letting nostalgia have its sway upon me, and turned to walk again. I stopped in my tracks.

Amalthea was sitting astride a large boulder, her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed. I was shocked to see her. She did not look shocked to see me.

'There are,' she said, 'only two types of children who run away. Children who have something to run away from, and nasty little children who like to earn attention by causing trouble. Which one are you?'

I blushed, but lifted my chin in defiance. 'How did you find me so quickly?'

'Adrastia told me that she took you to Thronos. She was worried that it had upset you. I've been waiting for you here every morning since – what kept you?'

Her callous – and correct – assumptions brought my indignant anger come to boiling point.

'I want to leave!' I declared. 'I want to leave and you cannot stop me!'

Amalthea gave me a long, hard stare full of pitying disdain. Then she slid off the boulder. 'For how long do you imagine you could manage on your own in human civilisation? You do not know the customs, or the people. You have no currency, or know of any means of making it. Your face is known and hunted the world over, and worst of all, you are preternaturally strong and incapable of controlling yourself.'

I began to back up the path as she walked toward me. 'If you do not let me pass, I will show you how strong I am!'

'Why are you leaving; so that you can idle your days away playing with the local children? Is this more important to you than your destiny?'

She advanced, and I edged backwards. A rock jutting out of the pathway stubbed my ankle, and I stumbled and fell. Blood dribbled down to my foot. When I tried to look up at Amalthea, the sun was in my eyes. I felt them sting and fill up with water.

'Let me pass!'

'No. I swore to your mother that I would protect your sorry backside from danger even if it endangered my life, and so help me, that is what I am going to do.'

In a fitful, childish rage, I bared my teeth at her. I had never, ever been this desperate, this angry, and it scared and exhilarated me. The sun in my eyes faded, and the skies darkened too quickly for natural means. Amalthea glanced up. Far-off in the west a gang of thick, heavy clouds were amassing. They were blocking out the rising sun and headed our way.

Amalthea smiled down at me, her eyes dead and grim in her face. 'I taught you the _Reboare Resono_. Are you now going to wield it against me?'

'Only if you stand in my way,' I growled, my nails digging into the dirt like claws, and my voice lost to the booming growing louder, nearer.

'The boy I raised is foolish and brash, but if there is one good thing I can say about him, it is that his temper tantrums have been few. Do not make me a liar, Zeus.'

'_Get out of my way! I want to leave! I don't want to be king! I don't want to be king anymore!_' I screamed, and in my panic I let my frail grip on the lightning slip away.

The heavens opened in a downpour of colossal magnitude. A flash of light snarled down from the sky.

'Zeus!' I heard Amalthea shout above the storm.

Lightning clapped behind me, very near the colony. Too near the colony.

My personal angst turned to a gradual, stealing horror. 'Oh no,' I whispered, as rivulets of water ran tracked down my face and mixed with my tears. 'No no no…' I was going to burn it all down. Oh heavens, I was going to murder every innocent nymph who had lived with me and loved me, and all because of a tantrum, all because of my selfishness.

Amalthea's voice reached me again – loud but firm. 'Breathe deeply and call it back in!'

'I can't!' I cried, my face flushed and my head swimming. I couldn't match my foster mother's composed bravery – my voice came out a shrill squeak. The torrential downpour overhead did not let up. I was soaked to the skin, and chilled to the bone in despair. As I watched in helplessness, lightning struck again, snaking down from the sky like a jagged white serpent and striking a tree. The oak groaned, smoke rising from its branches, and it toppled like a felled monolith.

Amalthea crossed to where I was slumped on the ground in my paroxysm of panic. Her eyes gleamed as another bolt of lightning struck behind us. 'Stop it.'

'It's not me! I said, sobbing. 'It's going _through_ me, not coming _from_ me!'

She took my chin and slapped me hard. My face was so wet I couldn't tell if I was crying anymore or not.

'You're right, Zeus. You are the medium, and while you're channelling all your energy down here you are as good as sending your father signposts that will lead him to our front door. Calm down and focus. If you don't, the cloaking spell won't hold and our hideout will be discovered in a matter of minutes. Unless you kill us all first.'

I shut my eyes. Thunder boomed overhead. I thought briefly of the man in the shop, laughing. The rumbling grew louder. Adrastia's vase, shattered in pieces. Louder. The grubby faces of those children I would not see again. Louder. I was desolately sad. Louder.

'Amalthea,' I said in a breathless mutter, 'stand back.'

She got to her feet, and looked down at me, then stepped back.

I raised my head and arms to the dark sky, against the lashings of rain, and focused my sadness. The rolling, roaring clouds seemed to stop for a second, to take aim. And then the lightning hit. I felt it inside, in a brilliant flash that warmed me, heated up my being like a battery being recharged. I let it take me.

When I returned to consciousness I was on my knees, Amalthea before me. I blinked and looked beyond her head – the skies were clearing. The rain had dried up.

'Not bad,' she said with a tight smile, 'not bad at all.'

'Forgive me,' I said. This time I knew I was weeping, because the tears burned as they fell, hot with bitter shame. 'Please forgive me.'

Amalthea settled herself on the ground in front of me, and let me cry. She did not attempt to comfort me with words or arms. Approval was her comfort of choice.

When I was coherent enough to listen, she said,

'We were forewarned of your skill, but I never imagined you would outgrow my teachings so quickly. I can't contain you anymore. You passed my final test, and now I believe that you are ready.'

'Ready?' I said, wiping my puffy face on my muddy chiton.

'Yes.' She was gazing beyond the parting white clouds to snatches of sunny blue. It was going to be a glorious day. 'Ready to meet your fate. Rest now. I'll bring Senex here tomorrow.'

* * *

><p>Senex was an elderly angel who had worked on my father's counsel when he'd first ascended the throne, and had been the closest thing my father had to an aide. But as my father's sanity began to fragment so did his court, and many of his strongest opposition were those who had once been close to him.<p>

Senex was among them.

When I first met him he reminded me of a dandelion husk; frail enough to sway in a strong gust of wind, and all grey and sparse on top. He had ridiculously little glasses which he kept pushing up his long beaky nose; I thought they must be for decoration, as they never spent time anywhere near his eyes.

He smelt like burnt cabbage and pipe smoke, and I had the ridiculous yet overpowering urge to stroke his beard to see if it was as soft as it looked.

'Yes yes, young master Zeus,' he said, pumping my hand and nodding briskly, 'yes yes, a pleasure, hm? A pleasure. Good lord, you look like your father, hm? Gave me quite a fright, until I saw your eyes. True violet blue, yes. Tea, Adrastia? Now, Amalthea has informed me that you're just about ready, and I'm here to tell you all about what that will involve, so if you have any questions, you ask me, hm?'

'I was wondering…'

'Yes, yes, go on, don't be shy.'

I hedged. This was personal to me, something I had never even asked the nymphs. I felt myself blushing as I said, 'Could you tell me about my brothers and sister?'

Senex looked surprised. 'Good lord!' he said, 'I expected questions about the upcoming battle, but then, I don't suppose you've ever had the chance to ask about your family, hm?'

I shook my head, shy. 'I know only that my sister is named Hestia, and my brothers Poseidon and Hades,' I said, fidgeting with my hands. 'That's all.'

'Yes yes, well, your sister is the eldest; twenty five years your senior and Goddess of the Hearth. Quite the lovely creature, yes. Back in the good old days, before your father went,' Senex cleared his throat, 'back before I left your father's court, she would burst into his office in the middle of our meetings, tiny little scrap of a girl with big black braids and a voice louder than a lark, and she'd run over to your father and climb in his lap, and tell him all about what she'd been doing that day, whether or not he wanted to listen. He always did, but the rest of us were none too happy about the interruption.' Senex laughed, and wiped the corner of his eye. 'Your father and sister were close, before it all went bad. I think this will hit her the hardest. Once she is freed, of course.'

'Yes,' I said, imagining my brothers and sister in the prison our father had thrown them into. He had sealed them into his own body, the monster. 'And my brothers?'

'Lord Poseidon is the God of the Ocean, and Lord Hades will take the duties of God of the Underworld, when he is old enough. They are sixteen and six years your seniors, respectively. Your father…' Senex paused.

I leaned forward. 'Please go on.'

'Your father was severe with your brothers. Because of the oracle, you understand, hm? His daughter was not a threat, but each time he knew he was due a son…'

'He feared that son would be me.'

'Yes yes, that's right, and it somewhat impaired his relationship with them. I never saw him interact with his boys, but the word was that he regarded them very harshly, when he regarded them at all. Lady Hestia was a frequent part of the Olympian social scene, but as a result of their stricter upbringing your brothers kept largely to themselves. They seem to have quite sombre personalities.'

'The poor things,' I said in anger, 'why have children if you're not going to love them?'

'Couldn't say,' Senex pushed up his drooping glasses, 'I wouldn't know about that, hm? I have no children of my own, no time for them…'

'Well when _I_ grow up,' I said, with a righteous little sniff of emphasis, 'I'm going to have many healthy children and love them all!'

'Of course you will,' said Senex, making no effort to hide the fact that he was humouring me.

I fell quiet, trying to imagine my elder brothers, and the cruelties my father had inflicted, and my sister, and the hurt she must've endured at his betrayal. I then imagined the day I would free them all, and we could walk together into the light. Hestia, Poseidon and Hades. I loved them already.

Adrastia came in, jolting me out of my pensive musings, and set down Senex's tea.

'Is it all going well?' she asked, smiling between us.

'Yes yes,' said Senex, straightening up and sniffing, 'all quite fine, thank you.'

It surprised me that he seemed uncomfortable discussing matters with Adrastia in the room, and that he waited until she left before continuing.

'Excuse me,' I said, 'but you do know that you can trust Adrastia, don't you?'

'Eh?' he said, blinking furiously behind his microscopic spectacles, 'Yes yes, naturally, but there are still some matters best left between us men, hm?'

I blinked back. This was an alien concept to me; having been raised by woman with not another man in sight to talk to. I sort of liked it – it made me feel revoltingly superior – even though I felt a touch sorry for Adrastia. It amused me to think of what would have happened if Senex had said that in front of Amalthea, though.

'There is one minor matter, young master,' said Senex, shuffling in his seat. 'Now, your entire race knows of you, and your destiny, and are eagerly awaiting your arrival. So you have been told, hm?' he added dryly, seeing me swell with pride. 'Not just gods, but nymphs, centaurs, satyrs and angels – all divine beings who have been crushed by Kronus, even some titans too. If you are successful, you will find only minor pockets of resistance to your reign. However…' He coughed, and averted his eyes. 'I don't suppose Amalthea has taught you any appearance changing tricks, has she?'

'Appearance changing? Why no, I shan't be able to do that until I'm mature.'

Senex's face fell. 'Oh dear, oh dear. That's a shame, hm?'

'Why?'

'It's nothing, nothing at all. Now we need to discuss what will happen,' he said, and was ploughing on in discussion of strategic tactics before I had a chance to protest. Before long my head was foggy with words and people I didn't know.

'Oceanus,' I said, holding up a hand to stop Senex in his rapid speech, 'who is Oceanus again?'

'The titan at the head of the secret resistance movement against Kronus. He was tutor to your siblings, confidant to your mother, and oldest and dearest friend of your father.'

I was dumbstruck, my bad feelings for my father worsening by the minute. How many loved ones had he hurt in his madness?

'Oceanus shall be your first and most valuable ally in this war,' Senex added, pushing up his wayward specs. 'He is older and wiser than anyone you have ever met, and he can provide you with access to the castle, and weapons. You must listen to every word he says, because he knows best, hm?'

'Fine,' I said, shifting, already restless for action. 'When do we leave for Olympus to recruit this wise and noble titan ally?'

'Gracious,' said Senex, with raised eyebrows, 'gracious me, you are an impatient one! Amalthea will take you to Olympus, but your first visit there will be recon only. She wants you to learn the layout of the land; your father has the home field advantage at present, and if you are to have equal standing you need to know what you are fighting, and where you will be fighting. There will be no contact with Oceanus or anyone else, hm?'

'Fine,' I repeated, now utterly disgruntled.

Senex must've seen mutiny in my dark expression, because his pressed his bony old hands on the table between us and steeled his eyes on mine. 'Young master,' he said, 'I know you must think of Olympus as the home you never knew and the kingdom you will someday claim, but at this point in time it is enemy headquarters; nothing more. We are sending you, our only hope of victory, straight into the lion's den. You must stick close to Amalthea's side and obey her every word, or all is lost. This is understood, hm?'

'Perfectly,' I said with my friendliest grin, thinking that when I was king people would be obeying my every word for once, instead of the other way around.

And I certainly wouldn't be recruiting an old fuddy-duddy like him as my advisor.

* * *

><p>We set out at nightfall.<p>

The mountain peaks surrounding the Olympian valley settlement reached up higher than Ida. They were thicker too, like sleeping, sloping behemoths, and were capped with white snow. The air was cleaner up here, fresher, and with every breath you could feel it washing each cell in your body clean. The grass smelled of dew and soil and, if you inhaled hard enough, of roses. Amalthea said the westerly winds up here passed through the castle gardens before heading to the mountains, so that with each gulp you could picture their regal elegance; see the vivid rouge of their petals, though they were miles away.

Where we stood on the hillside, knee-deep in clover, our cloaks flapping around our legs, we could see the entire settlement. At the northmost point, furthest from us, stood the many turrets of Kronus' castle, my birthplace; and behind it, its shadow towering over even the royal house, rose the summit of the hugest mountain – the peak of Mt Olympus herself. There was a hamlet, hardly bigger than Thronos, speckled with humble homes some distance down from the castle. A single river ran through, all the way from up in the hills and gullies, rushing down and dividing the tiny community, and making its way back out to the mountains on the other side. Milky, waning light flooded through the surrounding forest and down among the settlement like water into a basin. Further out there were scattered meadows of green and yellow and brown, where livestock roamed, and further out still were the wild, overgrown fields leading to a snarl of viridian forest, too thick with its canopy of trees to be penetrated with light or vision. The outer rim, jutting up behind us, was a circumference of jagged, rising and falling mountains, creating a skyline like an irregular heartbeat on a monitor. Like Amari, Olympus was protected on all sides. But as I looked down on it, on what would soon be mine, bathed in the fading shades of the day, I saw that it was cradled, not surrounded.

'It is beautiful,' Amalthea said, wading down through the long grass a few paces. 'But a picture of idyll is easy to accomplish from a distance. If you were to walk among the inhabitants and traverse the corridors of the castle, you would see a different and very unpleasant side to this realm of gods.'

I had my face titled eastwards. If the sun was setting behind us, that meant it rose right up behind the castle in the morning. They must have the most incredible view of anyone in the cosmos.

Amalthea was speaking. 'Zeus,' she said again, and then adopted the brusque tone she pulled out when she knew the answer to the question she was about to ask. She turned around. 'Are you listening to me?'

Her voice was already distant, because I was running helter-skelter in the opposite direction.

It took me barely three lungfuls and half a dozen paces to reach the edge of the field, and I ploughed down through the next, and the next after, uncaring of the brambles that scratched my shins, knocking aside the long, green and yellow ears of corn with a laugh, stampeding through a copse and making an entire flock of crows take flight. With my arms outstretched at my sides, whooping as I was, they must have thought me an odd, large and very noisy species of bird.

Amalthea had cried out my name once and then had fallen silent – she was not thrown enough to forget that my name was not one you could casually drop around here – but I knew she was following me. Even if I could not sense her presence, I knew once she had my scent she would trail me to the ends of the earth like a bloodhound.

Downhill was easing off now, and my stumbling canter levelled to a sprinter's dash. When I came to the first occupied field, inhabited by cows that could not have looked any less impressed by my visit, I veered right. Instead of heading straight into the settlement, as Amalthea had probably feared, I was now running through a forest, dodging this way and that around staggeringly tall tree trunks, and startling a round-eyed deer as I splashed through the water in a clearing.

I was laughing with merriment the whole time, gulping laughs around every breath.

A few minutes later, I heard the same splash some ways behind, and knew Amalthea had not lost me. Despite the labyrinthine twists of the forest, and the ever-growing twilight dimming my superb eyesight, I knew in which direction I was going. I could not explain it, but could only feel it, like an electromagnetic pulse drawing me closer and closer.

The trees thinned, and light (what there was left of it) began to break through overhead, and I found myself standing on the outskirts of the forest path once more, my hands on my knees, barely out of breath. The entire run covering several miles had only taken me a few minutes.

Right in front of me, closer than I should have dared, was the southern side of the castle; a five storey, golden dragon hiding great treasures in its belly. My father was in there somewhere, and within him my brothers and sister. I rested my head against the rough bark of an oak and squeezed back tears of every emotion.

_I am here_, I wanted to shout out to them, if only telepathically. _Can you feel my presence? Does it give you hope? I'm sorry I took so long to come back, but I am here with you now. You have nothing to fear anymore, because I shall save you all!_

I threw up an arm to test a lower branch, caught a good grip, and swung myself up. By the time I had clambered to the uppermost vantage point of the oak, and had settled cross-legged, smiling absently out at the castle gardens, Amalthea had joined me at the base. She was not out of breath either, but the look on her face could have withered crops.

I fluttered my fingers down at her in a cheeky wave, and nearly fell backward in surprise as, with two incredibly agile jumps, she was crouching at my side.

'I had to,' I hastened to explain, 'you can punish me if you want, but I just had to try to tell them, had to get close to them-'

I trailed off, unable to express myself for emotion. Amalthea heaved a great sigh.

'Idiot,' she said, and smacked my head.

* * *

><p>My final night in the bosom of Ida, wrapped in the comfort of my home colony, came all too soon. In all my years of excited dreaming, the realisation of what I would be leaving behind had not occurred to me before, and rendered me speechless with emotion when it finally struck. My innocent days of dreaming and playing had come to an abrupt end – necessity dictated that I be a child no longer, and yet I was still a child in every possible sense of the word.<p>

Despite the festivities of my going away party there was a lot of crying, and not all of it mine, for the nymphs were sorry to see me leave. They had each of them been my guardians in their own way, whether they had bathed me, taught me, or simply been there for me when I needed their arms, and so it was that I was leaving thirty two mothers behind, instead of just two.

Amalthea's only sign of sorrow was to appear more irritable than usual, but Adrastia wept in copious, unconstrained amounts for my departure.

We flung our arms about each other and howled, enough tears flowing to submerge the colony, and Amalthea eyed us grimly from where she stood as rigid as a tree stump from the periphery of the festivities and snapped, 'Oh for goodness sake Drass, he'll be back in a few days!'

It was true – I was due back in only a few short days, if all went well. But even if the dangerous plan did come to fruition, I would not return as the baby they had harboured for eight long years. I would return as a claimant to the throne with my brothers and sisters and a full army, and we would be preparing for a heavenly war of epic proportions. My home, my cradle, would be transformed into a citadel, and the gentle women I had embosomed myself within would discard their tenderness and rise with swords and daggers as soldiers. Oh, the turmoil of my young life!

Later on in the night, when the stuffiness had passed and the air was cool, when the music and festivities had died down and everyone lay sleeping or murmuring in pairs or groups around the bonfire, I crawled over to sit beside Amalthea.

She was leaning with her back against a tree, her eyes on the full moon. You could see it now and then, when the ragged cloud cover let it through. It was bright and almost monstrously full. I put my hand on her arm and my chin on her shoulder. I was peaceably, blissfully emotional thanks to more than my fair share of wine, the adults having indulged me as they never had before and feared they never may again. In a dreamy voice hoarse from crying and singing, I whispered to her with all the eloquence I could muster, barely hearing my own voice through the roaring in my ears,

'You are my goddess.'

With this one insensible declaration I somehow managed a tragic, maudlin solemnity. Her laughter reached my ears, distant and yet somehow close, and she put her arm around my neck and rested a hand in my hair. Her fingers gently massaged the back of my head as I surrendered to the somnolent caress of sleep.

'I'll be by your side in the next battle,' she said in a voice so soft I was surprised it was hers, 'and all your battles after that, my son.'


End file.
